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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535230">storm chaser</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba'>BasicBathsheba</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Erlking - Freeform, Garth Brooks - Freeform, Humour, Omaha, Shep POV, Shepard: the origin story, Storm Chasing, Tornados, baby's first monster, bad interactions in basements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,956</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard Clark is 17, reckless behind the wheel, and looking forward to a whole summer of storm chasing across the midwest. It's the thrill of the chase. But when he encounters something unexpected, Shepard begins to wonder if there are things out there more dangerous than tornados. </p><p>**This was written for the 2020 Golden Days zine**</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Golden Days: a Simon Snow Series zine</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>storm chaser</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>SHEPARD</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Last year, Scott Miller asked me why I chased storms.</p><p>“You see, young Miller,” I said, staring him dead in the eyes while I ate Funyuns off my fingers, “I was born for this.”</p><p>Scott stole my funyuns and shook up my pop, but I thought that was a pretty slick answer. And it’s the truth! I was born during a lightning storm. My dad was born the same day that the ‘75 tornado tore through Omaha, and my grandpa was born in a blizzard. My mom always says that if you see bad clouds coming, a Clark isn’t far behind. </p><p>It’s sort of funny, considering Dad hates bad weather because it delays his work, and Gramps gets angry when it snows.</p><p>They live in Atlanta, though, and it’s not like there’s any good weather to watch there anyway. Not like in Nebraska. When a storm rolls in, you can stand on your porch and watch it coming for miles. Get in the car and let the thunder take you across the country.</p><p>You can chase a cloud for days.</p><p>The secret to chasing storms is to just do it. You use meteorology and sense, and when you see a cool cloud forming, you get your friends and pile in the car and go. My best friend Jimmy’s big brother took us out with him when we were in eighth grade, let us sit in the bed of his truck and everything, and got us so close to the hail storm that we even caught some. Some of them were the size of softballs. It was <em> incredible</em>. </p><p>That was the start of it, for me and Jimmy. It was like finding a religion.</p><p>And when it’s just you and a friend and the open road, tearing down an empty highway, eyes peeled for supercells, it feels like anything can happen. Like you can see anything. Like you’re about to drive into the unknown.</p><p>That’s the rush of it. It’s not the danger. It’s the discovery.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>My radio app crackles on my phone, distracting me from the road. Nothing’s forming yet; I’ve got my eyes peeled, but right now the sky is just muddy and gray.</p><p>“<em>Clark, was that your truck I saw blowing through a stop sign about twenty minutes ago? Over.</em>”</p><p>I should have known Mick would be out today. Mick is <em> always </em> out. He’s a legend in the storm chaser community. Dude is like sixty-five and has seen every major weather system to sweep through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska in the last four decades. Pretty much every time me and the boys have ever gone on a chase, we’ve ended up at a diner talking to Mick.</p><p>“That would be a negative, friend,” I lie. “In this truck we love and respect the law. Over.”</p><p>The radio crackles, and I turn down my music so I can hear better. It’s not good to storm chase with music; Yeezy is good for getting on the trail, but the beats are just too distracting when you’re sniffing out funnel clouds.</p><p>“<em>You and Hansen going through Enid? Still owe me a coffee. Over.</em>”</p><p>Mick sounds like a bear when he talks. Looks like one too. Huge shoulders, salt and pepper beard, a total daddy. Jimmy thinks he looks like the <em> Dos Equis </em>dude. I think he looks like Chuck Norris.</p><p>“Riding solo today, Pappa Bear,” I respond. “Jimmy’s on a college tour. But I’d love to buy you that coffee. I’ll even throw in a pie if you finally tell me how you know Jodie Foster. Over.”</p><p>I feel bad for coming out without Jimmy. We’re always in this together, and storm chasing is more fun with friends. But it’s May! It’s prime storm season, and Jimmy is in California looking at schools instead of taking advantage of summer break and the fact that I finally have my own truck. He couldn’t really expect me to just sit at home in Omaha and wait around, not when me and Betty White have so much exploring to do.</p><p>(Betty White is my truck.)</p><p>“<em>Keep dreaming, pup</em>.” Mick’s gruff laugh fades out. “<em>And eyes open, especially if you’re alone. Weird sky today. Over.</em>”</p><p>Mick always thinks it’s a weird sky. He likes to squint up at the clouds like an old fisherman and predict bad news. Mick is exactly the kind of old dude I want to be.</p><p>“Sky is pretty clear from where I’m sitting. What are you seeing? Over.”</p><p>“<em>Funnel’s gonna form. Coming on quick. Going silent, pup. Enjoy the ride. Over</em>.”</p><p>I slap my hands to the steering wheel and jerk over to the side of the road as I hurry to open my meteorological map app. This is just my luck. Mick always finds the storms first, even if we’ve been following the trail perfectly. It’s like he’s got this sixth sense for where the funnel is going to touch down, and he magically manages to end up right in the eye every time.</p><p>Sure enough, as soon as I pull up my app, I can see the storm. It’s glowing red and heavy over the landscape, looking like it’s going to touch down any minute, a couple miles north of me.</p><p>Slamming my truck into reverse, I skid out along the road, do a <em> beautiful </em> three-point turn, just like my mamma taught me, and high tail it toward the storm.</p><p>Not five minutes down the road, the sky turns green.</p><p>I love this part of storm chasing, the way the light shifts and the clouds look all heavy and the sky turns green and sickly, like a bruise, and everything gets so still it’s like the whole world is holding its breath. Like you’re driving through silence.</p><p>In the distance, I see a funnel.</p><p>“Ah <em> hells </em> yeah,” I shout, slapping my dashboard and flooring it. Betty White shudders. This is a good thing about not having Jimmy around. He never lets me drive into storms.</p><p>The wind picks up and I literally drive into the rain. It hits my windshield like a wall. There’s hail too, not as big as softballs, more like ping pong balls, and they tap off my windows. The wind hits and buffets Betty White from side to side, and then—<em>finally</em>—the funnel touches down and becomes a tornado.</p><p>I’ve seen tornadoes before, but it never stops feeling like this. It steals all your breath, just being this close to the sheer power of it. The majesty of it.</p><p>This one is huge. It’s moving fast and doing its dance across the fields, and it’s singing. Howling. I’ve never seen one this big.</p><p>“<em>Clark, you seeing this? It’s switching direction, going south. Over</em>.”</p><p>I park my truck on the side of the road and lean my arms against the steering wheel to watch.</p><p>“C<em>lark? It’s moving fast. If you’re near this, son, you need to get out. Over</em>.”</p><p>The thing is, tornadoes are just so deliberate. They’re pure chaos and destruction but they’re so precise about it. They can tear the roof off your house and leave the neighbor alone, and then chew up your bathtub and spit it out miles away.</p><p>Betty White is rocking, the winds really hitting us as they pick up. I need to start driving again, need to get out of the way. I will in a minute. I just want to watch this, first.</p><p>I can’t <em> believe </em> Jimmy is missing this.</p><p>“<em>Goddamnit, Shep, you better not be waiting for this thing. Get out of there now.</em>”</p><p>Just as I look down to pick up my phone, a huge chunk of debris goes flying by my windshield.</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” I mutter, scrambling to sit up and put Betty back in drive. The tornado is closer. Or is it just bigger? It’s too hard to tell, but the wind is going crazy. I’m not going to be able to drive by this. I try to floor it, try to head straight, to see if I can get ahead of it, but the wind is too bad. I’m stuck in the inflows.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I throw it into reverse. The wind lets me go backward, crashing through a field. The tornado keeps getting closer as my tires skid out, and I shove the truck back into drive and take off parallel to it.</p><p>Jimmy is gonna <em> kill </em> me.</p><p>It sounds like there’s a train coming up behind me, and I can see the twister in my rear-view mirror. The wind is throwing everything in a mess. I shouldn’t have sat to watch it. Typically when we get too close, we get out of the path best we can and hunker down in the truck to wait it out. But I’ve never been this close before.</p><p>I slam through a field and across a dirt road and yank the wheel roughly to try to line myself up with the road, because that’s easier than going through corn. Some farmer is going to be so pissed tomorrow. Maybe the tornado will cover my damage. I should find who owns these fields and send them some of Mom’s cookies or something—</p><p>A giant plank of wood whizzes by my window just as I see the farmhouse.</p><p>Typically I’m not big on the whole home invasion thing, but I think I’m going to have to break that moral code for right now. I gun Betty White and crash through another field until I’m just in front of the porch, and then I slam her in park, jump out, and run up the steps. The wind is so strong it almost steals my glasses off my face.</p><p>“Hello!” I shout, pounding on the door. “Hello! Can I sit in your bathtub?”</p><p>There’s no noise from inside the house, so I jiggle the doorknob. Locked. Of course. I don’t think tornados respect locks, but I support whatever makes people feel safe in their homes.</p><p>I run back down the steps and circle the house, looking for some kind of outbuilding or barn, but the rain and wind are too strong and it’s hard for me to see anything. I’m going to have to wait this out in Betty and hold onto my butt.</p><p>Sticks and grass and dirt and rocks are flying into my face as I try to push back to the truck. If I live through this, this is going to be a <em> story </em>. This has to be a huge tornado. F4 at least. Jimmy’s going to be so pissed.</p><p>“Hey, kid!”</p><p>I turn, holding my arm up to my face to block out the dirt.</p><p>“Kid, in here!”</p><p>Squinting, I can see the door to an underground shelter held open just a bit, and a hooded figure hanging out of it. I sprint as fast as I can toward the storm shelter, ducking low and holding my hands over my face. Mom is not going to be happy if she has to buy me new glasses. If I can get out of this with no damage to my truck or glasses, though, I’m thinking she won’t need to know.</p><p>I dive past the figure and down the stairs into the storm cellar, and they close the door behind me with a heavy slam. Everything goes quiet and muted. All I can hear is myself panting.</p><p>“You okay, kid?”</p><p>It’s a man with a low voice.</p><p>“Yeah, thanks. I’m She—”</p><p>“Stay where you are,” he growls, and I hear the <em> shick shick </em> of a shotgun. The hair on my arms goes straight up, and I put my hands above my head.</p><p>“Uh, look, I don’t want trouble,” I say, still facing the opposite wall. I swallow. Jimmy is going to kill me if I get killed. “Thank you for saving me. Really.”</p><p>“Why were you out there?” His voice is almost… soft? Like, he sounds like the kind of dude you see in a romantic period piece. Like a dandy or something. “No one comes out here.”</p><p>“I was chasing the tornado,” I say. I clear my throat. “Honest, I don’t mean any trouble. As soon as the storm moves, I’ll go.” I lower my hands tentatively. “Is there anything I can do to thank you for saving me?” I start to turn, keeping my eyes low. “By the way, my name’s She—”</p><p>“I said don’t move!”</p><p>The dude sounds panicked, and I can hear him move backward. Some kind of furniture gets hit, something falls to the ground, and there’s a scuffing noise.</p><p>“Sorry, sorry!” I turn to face the wall again. Behind me, the storm door starts shaking, straining against its hinges. Shit. The tornado must be right over us. I hope Betty White is okay. She’s too young to die.</p><p>“Why would you chase a tornado?” the voice asks.</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I?” I scrub my hands on my jeans. They’re sort of sweaty. “It’s nature, man. It’s beautiful.”</p><p>The voice makes some kind of humming noise.</p><p>“You can sit on that chair,” they whisper. “Just don’t turn around. Turn around or try to look at me, and I will shoot. Do you understand?”</p><p>The hair on the back of my neck tingles. Why don’t they want me to look at them? What kind of instruction is that? Is this dude some kind of wanted serial killer? Am I in a storm cellar with El Chapo?</p><p>The voice makes a growling noise. “I said, do you understand?”</p><p>“Yeah! Yeah!” I sit down in the chair in front of me and then sort of regret it. I get up again. “Actually, man, I’m gonna stand, if that’s cool? Just, you know, with the whole gun thing, I’m, uh, actually feeling a bit uncomfortable with everything.”</p><p>The voice doesn’t answer, but I hear more furniture moving and the click of something being put down. Man, I <em> pray </em> that dude just put his gun on the table.</p><p>“So, uh, what’s your name?” I ask. I feel like maybe if I just keep talking, this won’t turn into a nightmare. People tend to be caught off guard when you talk to them a lot. Maybe if I just act like I’m not being held at gunpoint in a cellar, eventually I <em> won’t </em> be held at gunpoint in a cellar.</p><p>Silence. Then. “Jed.”</p><p>“Oh, cool! Nice name. Is that short for Jedidiah?”</p><p>Lord, <em> please </em> do not let me be stuck in the basement with some Biblical gun-toting crazy. I do <em> not </em>like that genre of horror movie.</p><p>“It’s short for Jedonaphrondel.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, that was going to be my next guess.” I look around me. The storm cellar is dark, and all I can see is the chair and shelves full of jarred nuts. There’s a trunk in front of me with a blanket on it, all ratty and worn through. “So, uh, is that German?”</p><p>Jed doesn’t answer. This basement looks like an apocalypse prepper did a really shitty job, and was also a vegan. There’s mason jars of apples, some peaches, corn and mushrooms, just filling the shelves.</p><p>“You like pies?” I ask, because Jed is not a great conversational partner.</p><p>“How old are you?” he whispers.</p><p>“Oh. Seventeen!” I hope Jed won’t shoot a minor. “I’m about to turn eighteen in June. Betty White—that’s my truck—she’s actually an early birthday present. My parents went in on her. They’re divorced, which means that they usually try to one-up each other on presents, so that’s how I ended up with a truck. I mean, she’s used, but—”</p><p>“The storm is passing.”</p><p>I almost turn around to check, but I catch myself just in time.</p><p>“You think?”</p><p>“Listen.” Jed is silent for a moment, and then there’s a scuffling noise and a screech, and the sound of the storm door being opened. It’s quiet outside, and I can just barely hear the cicadas and birds starting back up. The tornado either passed or petered out.</p><p>“Oh, yeah, I guess it has passed.” I take a deep breath. “So, I’m gonna go. If that’s okay. Thank you so much for letting me ride out the storm down here, Jed. By the way, my name’s She—”</p><p>“Turn to your right,” Jed says quietly, as I hear him pick up his gun. “Then walk toward the door. Keep your head down. Do not turn around.”</p><p>“Right.” I do as instructed and slowly turn, then start heading toward the door. I look at the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jed moving back, into a patch of shadows. He’s just a tall, dark shape, but I swear it almost looks like he has—</p><p>“Wait,” Jed says. I stop immediately. “Take off your glasses.”</p><p>“My dude, I am absolutely blind without these things.” It’s not totally true—they’re mostly for driving and seeing the chalkboard and stuff.</p><p>“Take off your glasses and put them in your pocket. Do not put them back on until you get to your truck.”</p><p>“Jed, I can’t—”</p><p>“Do it.”</p><p>“Alright, alright.” I take off my glasses and fold them up and stick them in my coat pocket. “Happy now?”</p><p>I slowly turn my head to blink at Jed and—</p><p>My heart nearly crashes into my throat. Up close, even in the shadows of the cellar, I can see him pretty well. He’s tall and skinny, and he’s got—</p><p>Well. Either Jed has the world’s weirdest hat, or Jed’s got antlers.</p><p>“Eyes down,” he hisses, and my head snaps forward to stare at the rickety wooden stairs as I put one foot in front of me and try to climb up and into the light. Jed follows behind me, so close that if I tried to turn and look at him, I’d probably fall into him.</p><p>I can see Jed’s foot behind mine on the stairs. Heavy boot, jeans. So he’s at least sort of human. He’s got legs and feet. This is a massive relief.</p><p>We hit the opening and I scramble out, squinting in the bright light. The yard is an absolute disaster, but it doesn’t look like the tornado actually hit. Betty White has branches and debris all over her, but the old girl’s still standing.</p><p>“Get in your car and leave. Do not turn around.” There’s something pressed against my back. Man, I hope that’s not the gun. Maybe Jed has cloven hands? Nah, wait, probably not. He couldn’t hold the gun or open the door if he had hooves.</p><p>Maybe the hooves are in his boots?</p><p>“Thanks again, Jed.” I make a show of stumbling over to the truck, pretending like I can’t see anything. “I’ll send you a Christmas Card! Oh, what kind of cookies do you like? I wanted to say sorry for the field—”</p><p>“Do not come back here,” Jed says, stepping back down into the cellar. I open my truck door and make a show of clearing off the debris, and turn my head a bit to squint at him.</p><p>Those are motherfucking antlers.</p><p>Actual, real-ass antlers, growing straight out of his brown, curly hair. I can’t tell if he has hair on his face or if he just has a beard, because my eyesight is really not what it should be. Mom may be right about video games and blindness.</p><p>Pulling myself into the truck, I check Betty for injuries and then put my glasses back on. When I look over, Jed’s gone and the cellar door is closed.</p><p>“<em>Shepard? I repeat, did you make it through? Over.</em>”</p><p>I nearly jump out of my freaking skin when Mick’s voice crackles through my phone. Turning my truck on, I pull her out of Jed’s yard and back onto the dirt path. </p><p>“Papa Bear, this is Shepard Clark, alive, unscathed and reporting for duty. Over.”</p><p>“<em>You little shit. Over.</em>”</p><p>I grin and set my phone back on the dash. “I’m heading back toward Enid and I am hungry, my friend. Want to meet for that coffee? I have got a hell of a story for you.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>Mick sits back in his squishy diner seat and stares at me.</p><p>“That’s a hell of a story, kid.”</p><p>“Do you think it’s possible, though?” I lean forward, my hands flat on the table. “Creatures? Real creatures, walking around out there, mythological as anything and actually real?”</p><p>Mick takes a long, slow drink of his coffee, then sets the mug back on the table and runs a hand through his beard.</p><p>“You got caught in a tornado, you had your glasses off. That’s a high-stress situation, Shep. Folk see weird things when they’re in situations like that.”</p><p>“I know what I saw, Mick. He had antlers. And what kind of name is Jedonaphrondel?” I shake my head and collapse backward. “And just think! If he’s real, what else is real? What else is <em> out there </em>? Creatures! Monsters! Magic!”</p><p>Mick rubs his hands together and runs his hands over his ring. He’s not married, but he wears this huge, silver ring on his forefinger. At first I thought it was a rodeo ring, but it’s classier than that. It’s got all these etched symbols, and it’s fancy like an Edwardian dandy’s ring, and Mick rubs it when he gets annoyed or is thinking.</p><p>“I think you need to let this one be, Shep.” He takes another long sip of his coffee and furrows his thick grey eyebrows. “Magic ain’t real, son. Won’t do you any good to go chasing it.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“But nothing. Think of how your mother would feel if she found out you got stuck in a tornado and then held at gunpoint by some fella with a messed up hat?” He shakes his head. “You’re a good kid, Shep. You’ve got a good heart and sometimes a good head. Don’t send it to hell chasing dark creatures.”</p><p>“Fine,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh. “Alright, alright. I won’t chase it. I’ll leave it be.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Yeah, right.</p><p>I don’t know what Mick is thinking. Maybe thirty years on the road listening to non-stop Garth Brooks has Kentucky-fried his sense. But really? I find out that magical creatures might exist, and he thinks I’ll just drop it?</p><p>No one would drop it. No one I’d want to know, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The first thing I do is go back to Jed’s farm. I bring Jimmy with me, just in case, but I make him stay in the truck.</p><p>“This is weird, even for us,” he says, crouching low in Betty White’s front seat. He doesn’t really fit, so I hide him with a tarp. “We’re stalking this dude.”</p><p>“Not stalking. Just trying to say thanks.” I rummage around in my bag and pull out the cookies Mom made me. Super nutty peanut butter surprise. Completely vegan.</p><p>“The dude held you at gunpoint and you want to thank him just because you think he had antlers? Shep, c’mon.” Jimmy’s face is sort of red, on account of hunching under the tarp. “Just leave it be.”</p><p>“I’ll be back in a flash.”</p><p>Jed’s picked up his yard in the weeks since the tornado, but the house looks as abandoned as before. No one answers the door, and the curtains are all drawn. I circle the house, but if anyone’s home, they’re hiding. Even the storm cellar is locked.</p><p>I leave the cookies on the front porch, just in case.</p><p>“Alright,” Jimmy says, wiggling out from his hiding spot. “We came. We saw. We delivered baked goods to the Rapture dude. Can we please let this go?”</p><p>“Yeah, Jim, of course.” I throw my arm over the back of the seat and glance out the rearview mirror as I back up. “I just wanted to check. You know how I am.”</p><p>As I go to turn the truck around, I see the curtain on an upstairs window twitch.</p><p>“Like a dog with a bone,” Jimmy mutters, pulling up the weather app.</p><p>“Woof woof.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The next time I go back, I bring more cookies and a blanket that my mom made. I don’t know if the blanket is needed, but all of Jed’s blankets in his cellar looked pretty worn through, and my mom makes <em> excellent </em> blankets. I wonder what his coat looks like? I imagine it’s pretty hard to get into town to buy the things you need if you have antlers on your head. Maybe he gets his stuff delivered? Does that mean he has wifi? Or does he have a friend in the area, someone who’s normal looking and can bring him what he needs?</p><p>How does someone even get into a gig like that? Delivery boy for magical creatures.</p><p>I <em> definitely </em> see the curtain twitch when I leave.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>On the next cookie drop, I set up for awhile on the road near his house and do some sketches. The land here is really gorgeous. I don’t know if it’s all Jed’s, but it’s classic Oklahoma. Wide and flat, and when the sun goes down everything is peach and purple.</p><p>“<em>You better not be bothering that man again. Over</em>.”</p><p>I roll my eyes and reach for my phone.</p><p>“Mick, please. Give me the benefit of the doubt. Would I harass a humble creature? Over.”</p><p>Mick just answers with static.</p><p>Once the sun goes down, I leave the cookies, the sketch, and a note on Jed’s porch.</p><p>
  <em> I’m just trying to be a friend. I’d love to get to know you. That’s all. Promise. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> PS: Please let me know if you want a different kind of cookie? My mom makes awesome snickerdoodles. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>It’s raining when I hit Jed’s house again. It’s going to have to be my last trip of the summer. School starts next week, and Mom has been extremely clear that I can’t spend my weekends running up and down the country. I’m Nebraska-bound until fall break, at least.</p><p>I’ve been doing research, though. It’s just like storm chasing—if you use common sense and ask the right questions, it turns out there’s all this info out there, full communities already talking about these things.</p><p>I’d made a post online a few months back, and then someone directed me to a subreddit that’s entirely dedicated to recounting experiences like the one I had with Jed. I posted there to poke around—didn’t tell them where Jed lived, kept it subtle—and it turns out, I’m not the first person to see a deer man in Oklahoma. The sightings go all the way back to the ‘70s.</p><p>Some guys in the subreddit think the Oklahoma deer man might be an erlking.<em> King of the fairies</em>.</p><p>They’ve got theories for everything. Every kind of creature imaginable (they call those Maybes), and humans who know about their existence and can even do magic. They call those Speakers. It’s hard to get a lot of information about Speakers because...well...they don’t seem to speak. Not to Talkers, at least.</p><p>That’s me. Someone who talks, and gives energy to magic, but can’t channel it themselves. I like it. It’s pretty fitting.</p><p>Some people on the message boards have actually met Maybes and Speakers, and they post their photos and conversations and field notes. Right there! Anyone who wants to know can look it up and just read it all.</p><p>It’s incredible.</p><p>But it’s not enough.</p><p>I <em> know </em> Jed is a Maybe. I just know it. And I can’t just let it go. I can’t turn my back on the opportunity to actually speak to one, to ask him questions, and learn all these things I didn’t even know I didn’t know….</p><p>Well. That’s better than any tornado. Double the fun for half the destruction.</p><p>I pull my slicker up over my hair and grab my bag—an apple pie, courtesy of Mom, a new raincoat with slits in the hood to fit antlers, and some of my grandma’s canned peaches—and head toward the porch to drop it off. I thought about adding a note, letting Jed know I’ll be gone awhile because I’ve got to go back to school, but I decided against it. Let him miss me and my cookies. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.</p><p>I’m halfway up the porch and just about to put down the bag when Jed’s front door opens.</p><p>I freeze.</p><p>Jed doesn’t walk out of his house. He stays in the doorway, half in shadow, but just visible enough that I can see them. Antlers. Real ass antlers, sort of fuzzy looking. Jed’s got a huge beard and giant deer eyes, and <em> fur </em>. It goes all the way down his neck and disappears under his shirt, and then his hands are human. Rough brown skin.</p><p>“You’re the one who has been leaving those things?” His voice is still as soft and nice-sounding as I remember it.</p><p>I swallow and nod.</p><p>“Yes, sir. I’ve got pie today. You like pie? It’s apple. My mom’s recipe.”</p><p>Jed stares at me.</p><p>“Why do you keep coming back? I told you not to.”</p><p>“I just want to get to know you. I swear. That’s all. I just want to be friends.” I hold up my hand to do the scout’s honor, even though I never was in scouts. “You saved my life.”</p><p>Jed’s eyes are huge and round and impossible to read.</p><p>“Fine. You might as well come in, then. Bring the pie.” He stands to the side. </p><p>I nearly trip to get up the rest of the steps. I am <em> in</em>. I am <em> so in</em>. Eat that, Jimmy! I’m about to eat pie with a fairy king!</p><p>“Thank you, sir.” I stop in the doorway and hold out my hand. “Nice to meet you, by the way. I’m Shepard, from Omaha.”</p>
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